


Bones McCoy

by HelloHolaHallo



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: 5 Times, Academy Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-03 22:35:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4117252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelloHolaHallo/pseuds/HelloHolaHallo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I know Leonard says “all I've got left is my bones”, but is that really a reasonable basis for a nickname? So where did “Bones” really come from?<br/>Or, The five instances that inspired Bones' name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bones McCoy

**Author's Note:**

> Can be Mckirk if you want; or just friendship.

Jim is tired, hungover and aching everywhere.  
(And, if we're being honest, he's also inwardly regretting his persistent impulsiveness, and denying the fact that he is absolutely terrified, because Starfleet!? What was he thinking!)  
But if Jim Kirk is good at anything, (and actually he's really good at quite a lot of things), he's good at ignoring his own problems, usually by concerning himself with somebody else's. So he figures he just got really lucky (though he has no idea just how lucky as of yet) when a, by the sounds of it, grumpy, aviophobic, (possibly) depressed, drunk, divorcee, doctor (notice the alliteration) is shooed out of the bathroom to sit next to him. Especially when said doctor offers him alcohol.

As soon as the flight is over, of course, Dr. Aviophobe gets off the shuttle as quickly as health and safety (and alcohol induced clumsiness) will allow. This leaves Jim to carefully follow at a reasonable distance, while he contemplates how he'll manage to convince this doctor guy to be his best friend, and idly wonders why anyone would use such an odd expression. “All I've got left is my bones,” seriously?

**  
Jim had decided long ago that the best way to make friends was to leave them with no choice. Start with a proximity friendship and work your way up from there. He was also a big believer in good fifth impressions, (awful as he was at first, second, third and often fourth ones.) Therefore, in order to convince Dr. Grumpy that they were clearly meant to be best friends, he decides to hack the rooming system so that they can share a dorm.  
When his new room-mate doesn't stop glaring at him for two days, he starts to wonder if a more subtle approach may have been a better idea.  
Ever the optimist, however, Jim decides to try to to cheer his future best friend up. Being an excellent baker (and, incidentally, a terrible cook), he decides to make cookies. Who doesn't love cookies?  
Unfortunately, they have no ingredients, the local shop really isn't that local, he gave away his bike, and it happens to be pouring with rain. Jim decides to go anyway.  
Forty minutes later, he returns to their room (armed with one bag of shopping and about five litres of rain water) to find Dr. Glares-a-lot reading what is very likely to be some kind of obscure medical paper on his padd. He starts to glare up at Jim (as always), before an alarmed expression takes over and he stands up, exclaiming,  
“Dammit kid, you're drenched to the bone! Haven't you heard of an umbrella?”  
“Drenched to the bone? Really? Nobody says that.”  
“Shut up, and go and have a shower, you're soaked! What kind of idiot walks around in the rain without an umbrella!? What were you doing anyway?”  
“Come on, it's not like I'm gonna get hypothermia is it?” Jim protests on his way to the shower, if he'd have known all he'd needed to do was get McCoy into Doctor mode to get him to stop glaring, he wouldn't have bothered with the cookies.  
He already went to the shop though, so maybe he'll make them anyway.

**  
The next time it happens, they're in class, and, as is always the case when they're asked to discuss something as a group, their conversation has strayed so far from the point of the lesson, none of them can even remember how they got there.  
“Okay, I accept your point, but how many of these people are likely to be giving an accurate estimation? Anyway, what about cultural differences?” McCoy argues.  
Jim had forgotten his room mate even had a real name until he'd introduced himself as “Leonard”, but Jim had decided to refer to him as “the doctor” (after that 20/21st century sci-fi show, you know the one?). He enjoyed the fact that no-one got the joke.  
“Oh come on Len, we all know you're a big softie on the inside, that cynicism is completely superficial!” Jokes Ellie.  
“Hey! That's not true!” Len laughs, “This cynicism is bone deep!”  
“It's true,” Jim interjects, “the man doesn't like cookies!” he whispers, still horrified.  
Everyone on the table gasps dramatically and stares as Leonard rolls his eyes and pretends to frown.  
Jim just sits there grinning; too caught up in feeling the natural high that always comes from social interactions to notice the unusual idiom.

**  
Jim's reading Andorian poetry for class when 'the doctor' walks in through their door, takes a few paces, and promptly collapses. Jim goes over to check on him, (cautiously in case he gets up and snaps at him) and discovers that he is asleep. How anyone could sleep after bashing their head against the ground like that is beyond Jim, but he decides not to waste too much time thinking about it, starts to drag his roommate to his bed, gives up (he's actually really heavy) and settles for shoving him up onto the couch.  
When Dr.scary starts to wake up (about two and a half hours later), Jim having successfully completed his homework, he decides to make him tea.  
“Tiring shift at the clinic?” Jim remarks cheerily, handing a mug of lemon&ginger tea, with honey painstakingly stirred in for his favourite doctor. Doctor whocares eyes it suspiciously and raises his eyebrows at Jim, but drinks it anyway. Jim beams at him.  
“Tired is not an accurate representation of how I feel, Jim, I'm bone-weary.”  
Jim immediately begins laughing.  
“What!?” Dr. Boneweary demands angrily (but still cupping his tea to his chest lovingly).  
“Bone-weary? Where do you get these expressions? No-one's said that in at least a hundred years!”  
“Well I just did.” Grumpy grumps in reply. “Haven't you got something better to do than analyse my speech patterns?”  
Jim leaves the room still grinning, he actually doesn't have anything better to do, but he doesn't want to look pathetic.

**  
It's a couple of months after that when Dr.[INSERT BONE EXPRESSION HERE] does it again, he's talking about one of his patients who recently came down with an unusual illness and lost a lot of weight, “I'm just worried he won't be fit for his phys exams, but he won't let me excuse him. I'm sure he's very capable, but he's skin and bones!”  
“AHA!” Jim exclaims, rather too excitedly, “You did it again!”  
Len looks worried for Jim's sanity “what are you talking about?”  
“Bones! You keep talking about bones!”  
“I what?”  
“Drenched to the bone, bone-weary, all I've got left is my BONES!” Jim is really getting too excited now. “If you love bones so much, why don't you marry them!”  
“What is wrong with you?”  
“I'm going to start calling you Bones, Bones!”  
“Dammit Jim...” Bones sighs.  
Jim just grins at him, sporting a rather disturbing wide-eyed expression, and occasionally laughing under his breath.  
Bones isn't worried (except about Jim's sanity), he figures Jim will use his new nickname once or twice and then forget about it. He's wrong.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
